Come hell or high water: "The Call" sends the heebie-jeebies in San Diego

What on earth is going on here!? Rex Wockner explains the scariness that was yesterday's "The Call" here (organizers were hoping to draw the largest ever anti-gay religious crowd in California history to support of Prop.8 which would ban same-sex marriage rights in the state).

An excerpt from his post: "If I hadn't once upon a time been a Catholic seminarian and hadn't emerged from those days with near certainty that all this God/Jesus stuff is pure myth and mass delusion, it could have been dangerous to be there. It would have been dangerous for any gay person struggling with internalized homophobia or religious guilt, I think."

How scary was it? Well, watch the ad below (yikes!):


Nevertheless it seems that the conveners had trouble filling the stadium as Juls comments at Daily Kos ("They 'Call'ed and nobody was home") and Lucas reports at Calitics ("The Call at Qualcomm: Nobody's here").

In the meantime, to counter the scary bives coming from Qualcomm Stadium, a few San Diegoans (San Diegoettes? San Diegans?) organized a counter-protest in groovy Hillcrest in opposition of Prop. 8. Check out "It's Pray Day" at Mike Tidmus' blog.

UPDATE: After attending "The Call" and stopping home to report on it, Rex biked over to Hillcrest where I am certain he regained some sense of sanity. Full report here.

An excerpt: "Amazingly, the gay protest was organized entirely via e-mail and, to the best of my knowledge, it was the biggest gay street action in the 14 years I've lived here, apart from the gay pride parade, which draws about 150,000 people."

Mike Tidmus also has an update on the Hillcrest candle-light rally here.

Both photos courtesy of Rex Wockner. Click on them to make them larger. More scary photos of the first event here.

Related:

• Religious groups gather on both sides of Prop. 8 (San Diego Union Tribune, Nov. 2, 2008)